The present invention relates to an electronic apparatus and, more particularly, to the structure of a battery holding section included in the apparatus for removably holding a miniature battery for powering the apparatus.
Various kinds of portable electronic apparatuses including portable telephones, radio pagers and handy terminals are extensively used today. Such an apparatus is powered by a miniature battery and has a battery holding section in its casing. Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 4-192268, for example, discloses a battery holding section formed in the casing of a handy terminal which interchanges data with, e.g., a personal computer or an IC (Integrated Circuit) card. This battery holding section has a pair of connection terminals implemented as resilient coils and capable of contacting the positive and negative terminals of a battery, respectively. When the battery is inserted into or removed from the holding section, the electrodes of the battery and the connection terminals of the holding section contact each other with a certain time lag. Particularly, when the battery is removed from the holding section, one of the electrodes and associated one of the connection terminals are released from each other, and then the other electrode and the other connection terminal are released from each other. This successfully obviates the chattering of the power source and thereby frees electronic circuitry built in the handy terminal from malfunctions.
However, the handy terminal described above cannot implement, e.g., an arrangement in which at the time of insertion of the battery, a voltage from one connection terminal is fed to two different lines, but fed to one line earlier than to the other line. This kind of arrangement is useful to stabilize the electronic circuitry before the voltage signal from the other line is input thereto, thereby preventing the circuitry from malfunctioning.